PHARMACOLOGY AND PHARMACOTHERAPY
Academic year and teacher
If you can't find the course description that you're looking for in the above list,
please see the following instructions >>
- Versione italiana
- Academic year
- 2022/2023
- Teacher
- MICHELE MORARI
- Credits
- 9
- Didactic period
- Secondo Semestre
- SSD
- BIO/14
Training objectives
- The course is aimed at providing the student with fundamental information of basic principles of drug action and rational basis of therapy.
-Learning objectives: to describe the cellular and molecular mechanisms that determine drug actions.
To recognise the variables determining drug bioavailability. List the most important classes of drugs, their mechanisms of action, therapeutic properties and side-effects.
-Operational objectives: to assess the pharmacokinetic factors determining drug posology.
To critically assess the factors underlying drug development such as structural analysis, pharmacological profile, pharmacological screening.
At the end of the course, students will be able to understand the rationale of the choice of drugs in therapy, the link between drug use and their side-effects, and the interactions between drugs. In addition, students will be able to use their knowledge to rationally approach complex problems related to target identification, and research and development of drugs Prerequisites
- The student should have acquired and assimilated information about the anatomy of the different organs and systems as well as about their physiology. Knowledge of the basic principles of biochemistry and cellular biology as well as of general mechanisms of cell and tissue damage (general pathology) are mandatory to the full comprehension of the mechanisms of drugs action.
Course programme
- The course is organized in 72 lectures (taught classes), that provide 9 credits (1 credit=8 hours teaching).
General Pharmacology (12 hours)
Molecular and cellular mechanisms of drug action (4 credits)
Drug-receptor interaction. Quantitative analysis of drug action: dose-response curves.
Full and partial agonists, inverse agonists. Competitive and non-competitive antagonists. Therapeutic index.
Receptor classification: G-protein coupled receptors, receptor-channels, receptors with enzymatic activity (tyrosine kinase receptor, serine/threonine kinase receptors), nuclear receptors.
Modulatory proteins: regulators of G-protein signaling (RGS) and biased ligands.
Pharmacokinetics (1 credit)
• Drugs and biological membranes. Drug absorption, distribution, metabolism and elimination. Genetic polymorphism: pharmacogenetics and pharmacogenomics. Enzyme induction and inhibition.
• Routes of drug administration.
• Bioavailability. Apparent volume of distribution. Half-life (t1/2).
Organ system pharmacology (60 hours, 7,5 credits)
Autonomic pharmacology (12 hours).
• Organization and functioning of cholinergic and noradrenergic synapses.
• Parasympathomimetic drugs (direct muscarinic and nicotinic receptors agonist, acetylcholinesterase inhibitors).
• Parasympatholytic drugs (muscarinic and nicotinic receptor antagonists).
• Sympathomimetic drugs (alpha and beta receptor agonists, amphetamines, ephedrine).
• Simpatholytic drugs (alpha and beta receptor antagonists).
Central nervous system drugs (12 hours).
• Organization and functioning of serotonergic, dopaminergic and glutamatergic synapses
• Sedative-hypnotic drugs.
• Anxiolytic drugs.
• Antipsychotic drugs.
• Antidepressant drugs.
• Antiepileptic drugs.
• Drugs to treat neurodegenerative disease.
Cardiovascular pharmacology (8 hours)
• Diuretic drugs.
• Drugs acting on renin-angiotensin system.
• Vasodilators.
• Antianginal drugs.
• Cardiac glycosides
• Anticoagulants, fibrinolytic and antiplatelet drugs.
• Lipid-lowering drugs
Pharmacology of inflammation (6 hours)
• Histamine and antihistamine drugs.
• Nonsteroidal anti-inflammatory drugs.
• Glucocorticoids
Drugs for asthma and OCPD (2 hours)
Hormones and hormone antagonists (18 hours)
• Thyroid drugs
• Gonadotropin-releasing hormone and gonadotropins
• Estrogens and progestins
• Androgens
• Insulin and antidiabetic drugs.
• Drugs to treat osteoporosis.
Gastrointestinal pharmacology (2 hours)
• Drugs to treat heartbur and ulcer
• Laxatives and anti-diarrheal drugs Didactic methods
- During classes, the teacher shows slides illustrating the topics and interacts with students to check how student learned and retained the main concepts presented. The teacher also recommend textbooks which can help study more in-depth the topics.
Learning assessment procedures
- The assessment of learning is made through an oral examination during which the assessor poses two oral questions selected at random from a list of 65 questions that cover the whole program of the course. This list is published on the course website, is freely available to students, and is updated every year depending on the topics presented in classes. The assessment is aimed at evaluating student’s ability: i) to retrieve specific information related to the questions posed by the assessor, ii) to provide basic pharmacological concepts associated with it, iii) to present in an ordered way these sets of information and, in case, integrate the presentation with notes of organ system physiopathology. As an example, if requested to provide information on a certain class of drugs, what is needed to pass the examination, at the minimum, are the names of the most representative class members, their mechanism of actions, main therapeutic indications e side-effects. If the student does not answer appropriately to the first question, the second one will not be selected, and the examination must to be repeated in the next evaluation session.
Reference texts
- Every year the teacher posts on the website the slides with the topics of the lectures.
These topics can be studied more in-depth using the following textbooks:
• Goodman & Gilman “Le basi farmacologiche della terapia”, XIII 2019, ed. Zanichelli.
• Rang&Dale, “Farmacologia”. VIII edizione italiana; EDRA, 2016.
• Katzung, “Farmacologia generale e clinica”. XI edizione italiana, Piccin, 2021
